


at twilight the curtain falls

by legalgood



Category: The Blackrock Chronicles, The Yogscast
Genre: Gen, Zoey gets to rule the twilight forest, but Rythian winds up back in the End, dark au technically, letter format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 09:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legalgood/pseuds/legalgood
Summary: I am unchaining this world from the rest, so that you cannot reach me.  Every day I have to hope you lose is a strangler-vine around my heart, my throat.  I cannot bear it any longer.The End invades. The Forest fights back. The Princess' hands are stained with ash and ink.





	at twilight the curtain falls

 

R—

She took it apart, bit by bit, right from underneath me.  The months I spent in hurried, darting trips across the landscape, drafting treaty after treaty—all wasted time.  My scouts said all the portals had been closed, but they couldn’t venture too far up into the mountains.  I thought my allies there would send a raven if there were an incursion, but they were far too proud to say anything until it was too late.  When one of the mountainfolk finally limped her way to my court, a gaggle of your lanky brethren was on her heels.  They still had no power here, not then.  But they kept coming.  When I finally reached the Aurora Palace, it took my army weeks to clear the snowlands of _her_ kind.  I thought it was over, after that.  I closed the portal, set up another shield.  It wasn’t over, not by a long shot.

I don’t even know why I’m writing, it’s not like you don’t know all this already, whether you were leading the assault yourself or weeping in a tower somewhere in the dead sky of her world.  I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.  I’m sorry I couldn’t save you like you saved me, what is it, twice over now?

An elite force had broken off and gone past the Thicket.  I don’t know how they knew what was beyond—my family hasn’t ruled there in a thousand generations, preferring the company of forests to the barren stone behind the thorns.  Did I tell you?  Before I forgot everything, was that something you knew?  I wouldn’t put it past myself to spill the secrets of my land into your ear to hear you laugh and marvel.  I don’t remember telling you, but that means little now.

Perhaps they found the knowledge in one of the books you always flip through.  I don’t like to think about your betrayal, however likely it is.  My advisors drone on and on about you, y’know.  Tell me I might have to kill you if I see you again.  I always tell them I believe in you, like I always have, I tell them that you wouldn’t do something to hurt me, you wouldn’t help them drain the life out of this place and turn my sky dead too.  But privately, I hope more than I believe.  This itself is a betrayal.  I wouldn’t blame you a betrayal in return.

They broke the field generator bit by bit, like they do everything.  They must have been at it for months, hammering away with their fists.  There are no scouts beyond the Thicket, nothing grows there—nothing lives there, nothing has for longer than the records can remember.  We knew nothing until the field dropped, and suddenly I was surrounded.  My guards slaughtered them all, and I remembered in that moment your quick blade, the sound it made against the flesh of them.  Do you still have it?  Are you in a fortress over there, slowly killing your way out of a labyrinth to the sound of their pain?

I am readying myself for the invasion as I write this.  ~~Have you~~ Has she already conquered the world where you were born?  Would I go back to see the stone all bleached and dead, the sky gone empty midnight?

I wish I had you with me.  I hope I never see you with her banner on your back.

 

                                                                                                                                                      Yours,

                                                                                                                                                                     ████

 

As soon as the rain stops, they attack.  It seems like they are everywhere, and the denizens of the Land of Dawn and Dusk cannot keep up with their flashing movements.  The Princess has taught them as much as she can, and every member of her army has bottles and buckets of water on hand.  The sound of the invaders screaming drowns out everything else.  There is a flash amid the noise, brighter than the rest, and the Princess draws her weapon and darts out onto the battlefield.

 

R—

It sickens me, the joy I felt when you turned tail and ran.  I know it wasn’t fear of me; you’ll never be afraid of me, I think.  I hope not, anyway.  You’re scarier than I could be, with your dragonscale helm and boots that burn the ground to ash.  When I saw the lightning in the rainless sky, I ran right toward you.  They were everywhere, lifting the ground to take it with them, bringing their dead world into my living one.  The ravens watched the stream of them exuding from the barren wastes, tracked their stuttering movements inexorably winding toward the beating heart of this world.

I ran toward you as you called fire from void and set my home ablaze.  I wished I had your blade, wished I could tear a screaming path to meet you.  That sickens me, too.  The anger, the hatred.  I said I could forgive you one betrayal.  I suppose this means I’ve lied to you again.  That’s thrice over, at least.  Not that I’m keeping track.

They left when you ran, and we took the hill.  My scouts are vigilant, my people across the land know to kill them on sight.  They will find no kindness anywhere here.  I will push you back again and again, I swear.  I have always, always believed in the things that you fashion from sunlight, the essence of a star shaped into your will.  I believe it is a force I do not wish to battle.  I believe you could crush this world in your fist if I left you alone with it for long enough.  I will not let you.

My advisors, wisely, no longer speak your name.  I pray, fervently, to the ground below my feet and the unchanging sky, for your failure.

                                                                                                                                                      Still, yours,

                                                                                                                                                                     ████

 

It takes weeks, it takes blood, but bit by bit, as they do everything, the lanky invaders retreat.  On the days the Princess cries, rain surges down from the dark sky and they cower in their makeshift tents.  The army begs to attack, but the Princess doesn’t let them.  _It wouldn’t be fair_ , she says again and again.  One day, when the leader of her troops raises the question, she just sobs into her hands and nods helplessly.

 

R—

Do you pace, sleepless, in the camp you’ve made beyond the Thicket?  It has been weeks since the last assault and I have not slept since I saw you last.  It is cowardly, I think to myself, that you stand at the back of your troops and watch my people scythe through them.  Are you afraid of meeting my gaze again?  Is _she_ afraid what would happen?

After you are gone from here, I will have to heal the land again.  It will not be so easy without you by my side.  I have you to thank that there is no infighting; your correspondence was of great help in drafting those treaties.  But after the threat is gone, will they doubt my leadership?  If I do not kill you, if I merely push you from my world, back to the place that spawned you, will they think me weak?

Between thinking of you and the lack of you, I get no rest at all.

I’m going alone into the Thicket to see you.  Not to parley, not to fix the terms of battle.

If the path to you is barred, I will clear it with a sword.

                                                                                                                                                      Always, yours,

                                                                                                                                                                    ████             

 

When they see the spark of flame on the other side of the Thicket, the people of Land of Dawn and Dusk wait not a moment, thinking another assault has just begun.  Their Princess is missing, and their home is ablaze.  The most powerful of them cry into the sky to bring forth the rain.  The long quiet of the Thicket is slaughtered as they rush toward the burning beacon.

 

R—

          I’m sorry I set you on fire.

                                                                                                                                                                    ████

 

It takes blood, it takes rain, but bit by bit, one by one by one, the Land of Dawn and Dusk returns the invaders to the land from whence they came.  The Princess, dry-eyed and endlessly sad, watches from a window, gently stroking a raven.  It caws, almost sorrowfully.  A red cow pushes her head under the Princess’ arm, and she smiles wanly.  She turns away from the window and toward the desk across the room.

 

R—

This is the last time you will hear from me.  I was lucky, I know, to have beat you back so soundly.  You are, doubtless, preparing for another invasion.  She wants all the worlds in her dead grip, you told me once.  And now so do you.  I was lucky you weren’t at full strength.  You were startled by me, startled by your own past-kindness.  I will not catch you off-guard again.

I am unchaining this world from the rest, so that you cannot reach me.  Every day I have to hope you lose is a strangler-vine around my heart, my throat.  I cannot bear it any longer.

My advisors assure me the kingdom is pleased with how I dealt with you, say there is not the merest murmur of a challenge to my throne.  My spies say otherwise, but this is none of your concern, not anymore.

Sally has agreed to carry these letters to you.  Please—if you remember any of the kindnesses you did me—please let her live.  Please keep her safe and keep me in your memory.  She’s brought some of my old friends with her; if you ever stop fighting, plant them and think of me.

                                                                                                                                                      Still, always, yours,

                                                                                                                                                                     ████

**Author's Note:**

> yknow when your friend recommends a minecraft series and you watch it just as spring break begins and then the next thing you write winds up just being about that? yeah this is like that
> 
> this is in part the fault of @ResidentHesitant who is the aforementioned friend and also recommended adding the narration portions so this became a full-ass thing instead of just a bunch of random and foreboding letters


End file.
